Price Check: 3Ware 9500S-8 + 8x300G HDD

[arthurleung]

Due to my parents bitching about how much stuff I have to carry around when moving out, I'm slowly moving away from desktops, so might need to get rid of this array very soon. Also planning to phase out the 300GB drives as they're way too small with today's standard (500~750G)

1x AMCC 3Ware 9500S-8 Hardware RAID card /w 128MB onboard cache
4x Maxtor Diamondmax 10 300GB HDD
4x Seagate 7200.9 300GB HDD

Works on 32Bit/64bit PCI slots at 33/66/100/133Mhz.

I've tried a rebuild yesterday (faulty SATA power cable :S). It took exactly 110 minutes to rebuild a whole disk. (Which averages 45MB/s)

On normal writing operation with write cache on, due to the slow PCI bus I am using, it tops at about 65MB/s.

Sandra Drive Index: 105MB/s (4x300 RAID5)

Wonder how much the whole lot worth?

Cheers
Arthur

[DR]

Is this the PCI or PCI-X version?

[arthurleung]

Is this the PCI or PCI-X version?

This is the PCI-X version, but it works in the PCI slot. The higher-end 9550SX DOES NOT work on 32 bit slots, so this is probably the most powerful hardware raid card you can possibly get on a PCI slot.

[moogle]

250GB hd's are about £35 - £40 new so hmm, 300GB ones would be slightly higher but since its used I suppose they are around that price. Not a lot of peeps like the Maxtors though. Max £150 for the seagates and same for maxtors. No idea on the card. Damn that would be heavy to post

[sawyen]

I'd say more like 70quid for the lot of 3x300GB.. 320GB are doing £40ish new..

You could ask for a fiver more on the seagate but the 7200.9 are pretty old anyways..

If I was sweeping for discs, I'd only really pay that amount..

The RAID card on the other hand.. will probably be the money maker.. I'll probably pay £200 for that host card..

The lot, I'd say for my budget and mindset (considering if I'm taking everything)... I'd be hard pressed to go anywhere higher than £310ish..